I have used a lot of dried cranberries while baking but am picky about the fresh ones. So far I have tried only one recipe using fresh cranberries. It is this cranberry bars recipe from the Joy of Baking website. Although it did come out well and tasted good, somehow I did not develop a liking for this beautiful red fruit. I think part of the reason is my quirky food likings. I usually don't like sweet and sour or sweet and spicy together.
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A dish has to be either fully sweet or fully spicy. So its obvious that I do not like the combination of tart cranberries and sweet in baked goods. Anyhow I decided to give it a shot once again this cranberry season.
Lately I have been seeing a lot of Indianized cranberry recipes. Cranberry rice, cranberry pickle, cranberry dal, etc. just to mention a few. So I decided to try at least that if at all not baking with cranberries. Recently I also got hooked to the Taste of Home website.
I have got a baking book published by that magazine and am a fan for those recipes. I have had a 100% success rate with those recipes. I don't know what stopped me from visiting their website all these days. A couple of days back I borrowed a Taste of Home Cookies book from the library. It has 623 recipes and I was so tempted to get one for myself. That's when I decided to check out their website to see if they have free recipes online and I was overjoyed to find the same.
I looked for some cranberry recipes in there and bookmarked this cranberry muffins recipe. It was a simple straight forward recipe and the egg substitution was easy too. I decided to use flax seed meal as the egg substitute like I used for the vegan cranberry quick bread recipe and it turned out great.
For the past couple of months I have been incorporating a lot of whole grains and whole grain flours while baking. So I decided to used plain all purpose flour this time. Partly the reason being, my phobia for cranberries.
Since I was not sure if I would like cranberries I didn't want to use whole wheat flour and mess it up further. Surprisingly these cranberry muffins did not fail me. It tasted pretty good with mild sweetness, occasional tartness from the cranberries here and there and a nice crunch from the pecans. I would definitely try this recipe again but would increase the quantity of sugar a little bit.
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
- Brown Sugar - ¾th to 1 cup
- Baking Powder - 2 teaspoons
- Chopped Pecans - 1 cup
Wet Ingredients:
- Canola Oil - ⅓ cup
- Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice - ⅔ cup
- Flax Egg - 1 count
- Orange Zest from 1 Orange.
- Coarsely Chopped Fresh Cranberries - 1 cup
If you tried this Vegan Orange Cranberry Muffins recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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Recipe
Vegan Orange Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- ¾th to 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1 cup Pecans Chopped
Wet Ingredients:
- ⅓ cup Canola Oil
- ⅔ cup Orange Juice Freshly Squeezed
- 1 count Flax Egg
- 1 tablespoon Orange Zest From 1 orange
- 1 cup Fresh Cranberries Coarsely Chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 375F/190C for 15 minutes. Grease or line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and keep it aside.
- Whisk together the flaxseed meal and warm water and set it aside for it to turn gooey. Or if you have a mini blender jar (like that of Magic Bullet) you can blend the flaxseed meal and water until it's nice and frothy.
- Measure orange juice in a liquid measuring mug, add water until you reach 1 cup measure in the mug. To this also add the oil, flax seed mixture, orange zest and stir together well.
- Pour the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture and mix until just moistened. Fold in the cranberries too. Do not overmix.
- Spoon in the batter in the greased muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Move the muffin tin to a cooling rack and let it cool for just 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins from the pan and cool it completely on a wire rack.
My Notes
- The quantity of sugar mentioned in the original recipe was ¾th cup and I used the same, but felt that the muffins could have been a little more sweet. So you can increase the quantity to 1 cup.
- I always prefer freshly squeezed orange juice in baking recipes. I have found out in my experience that the store bought orange juice is slightly bitter and the bitterness reflects in the baked goods too.
- If you wish to use frozen cranberries, do not thaw it. Use it directly from the freezer otherwise the berries will start bleeding turning the batter red.
Nutrition
Genevieve says
These turned out great! Followed the recipe as is (using 3/4 cup of brown sugar) and since I don't like my muffins too sweet, these turned out perfect. Thanks for the great recipe!
Madhuram says
You're welcome.
Heather says
I made these yesterday and brought them to work. My team is raving about them. Said they were bakery quality - Best they have every had! I am not making this up. Today my boss came in and commented on how good they were again.
Madhuram says
Wow! Thank you so much for the feedback, Heather. You made my day!
Yolanda says
I had a few missteps and this recipe was very forgiving! I forgot the part where you add the water to the OJ so the batter seemed a bit dry. I just added the extra 1/3 cup at the end. Also accidentally added the chopped cranberries in with the wet ingredients rather than folding them in at the end. Still fine. For the flax egg, rather than using and dirtying a blender, I just added 1TB ground flax with 3 TB water to a small bowl and let it thicken while I worked on juicing the oranges, then added it to the wet ingredients. The only slight modifications I made were using 1/2 c brown sugar and 1/2c (scant) white sugar plus 1tsp vanilla extract on another reviewer’s suggestion. Don't have a muffin tin so I used a loaf pan and baked for 50 minutes. My apartment smells like fresh oranges and the loaf is verry delicious!!! Baking always feels like such an exact science so I was sure with all my mistakes it would turn out horribly but exactly the opposite. I may consider dropping the heat down a few degrees next time if I’m still using the loaf pan. Absolutely delicious warm from the oven. Thank you for the recipe! This one I’ll be keeping 🙂
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for the detailed feedback, Yolanda. These days I too don't blend the flaxseed meal and water. Just mix it and leave it as you have mentioned.
Elicia says
These are good. I subbed aquafaba for the flax mainly because I made hummus and had the aquafaba.
I squeezed the oj and thought I had enough zest but definitely could use more of a orange flavor. Next time I make these I may cheat and add orange extract.
I did use my meathly to chop the cranberries which made them small and they incorporated very well.
Thank you.
Madhuram says
You're welcome, Elicia. It's great to know that aquafaba works in this recipe.
Rebecca says
I doubled the amount of zest and still couldn't taste any orange :/ Other than that the recipe was very good. Going to try again in a few minutes and add a even more zest and possibly do a mix of fresh and dried cranberries.
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback, Rebecca. Maybe adding some freshly squeezed orange juice might help.
Gertrude says
Excellent!
Madhuram says
Thanks, Gertrude.
Virginiadyer says
...sat in the kitchen waiting for my muffins to cook and finding the oil sat on the worktop....:(
Let's see....
Selena says
Yes, it's not mentioned in the recipe where to add the oil.
Madhuram says
Thanks for pointing it out. Have updated the recipe.
Ronak S Bagadia says
Hi ,
This recipe is really amazing, I tried it, the orange rind is a very pleasant surprise!
Madhuram says
Thanks Ronak.
Siobhan says
Is it possible to use agave instead of sugar?
Madhuram says
In this recipe it's a bit tricky Siobhan, because this recipe already has a lot of liquid in the form of oil, juice. Using agave will make the batter more runny and you would have to do a lot of other tweaking.
Kalpana says
Thanks for the recipe, Madhuram! My kids love them. I try to go a little less on the sugar than what you have recommended and it still comes out tasting great!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Kalpana.
Rinkal Haria says
Thanks Madhuram will try and post the review.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Rinkal.
Rinkal Haria says
Apart from flax seeds what else can we use and how much?
Madhuram says
1/4 cup of applesauce or yogurt will also work.
Karen says
These muffins are very yummy! My very discriminating vegan son loved them. Used organic sugar and grape seed oil instead.
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for the feedback 🙂
Amy says
I made these for Thanksgiving morning and was very pleased! They are moist, fluffy and bursting with flavor. When I make these again, I will make a few alterations:
1. Allow more time for prep - took about 30 minutes because of chopping, juicing and zesting.
2. Use less sugar (I used about one cup of organic sugar, not brown sugar) because I like a less sweet muffin.
3. Allow more time to cook - it took about 22 minutes to get them browned on the top.
4. Use a muffin-top only pan - because the top of the muffin is my favorite!
I did alter the recipe a little: used regular sugar, triple-filtered coconut oil vs. canola, and after chopping the fresh berries I dried them and sprinkled them with flour so they wouldn't color the batter.
Madhuram says
Thank you for the detailed feedback Amy.
Roxanne says
I NEVER leave comments on recipes I find online... but this one is too good that I just have too! So simple to make, yet so good! I couldn't stop eating them so I'll have to make more haha! Cheers!
Madhuram says
That's great Roxanne. Thank you very much for your feedback.
Theresa says
Even though canola oil was listed in the "wet ingredients," there was no mention in the "procedure" of when to add it. I'm a very step-by-step baker so I almost left it out. I realized just before baking that I had omitted the oil so I added it and stirred the batter again. The muffins are baking now so I don't know how this will affect the outcome. Keeping my fingers crossed! Thanks for the recipe.
Madhuram says
I guess it comes under the liquid ingredients in point 5. Will be more clear here onwards. 🙂
Ambika says
These are probably the most moist, delicious muffins I've ever made and they're always my go-to vegan dessert. I did make a few changes though. I didn't have flax seeds so I simply didn't use them, and I used sweetened dried cranberries because that was all I had on hand (so I cut the sugar to 1/2 cup.
I was pleasantly surprised that the muffins turned out amazing even without flax seeds. If anyone is wondering whether they can skip that ingredient if they don't have any, the answer is yes.
I also added white chocolate chunks to these once and it was crazy delicious. Of course, that makes them no longer vegan. They're also pretty yummy with walnuts instead of pecans, or with dried, shredded unsweetened coconut.
Madhuram says
It's great to know that it works well without the flax seed too. Maybe the other liquid ingredients in the recipe was enough to moist and hold the muffins together.
Suzy says
I had fresh cranberries that needed to be used and thought this recipe sounded great, and only 15 min in prep! Well, it may be 15 min in prep if you have a house gnome zesting and juicing oranges for you. It was about 45 min until I had these in the oven, and I'm no stranger to a kitchen. I have no complaints otherwise but it drives me batty when prep time is understated.
Abigail says
Great Recipe! I made these with store-bought orange juice, tangerine zest and a touch of lemon zest because the tangerine zest made it too sweet. I also switched the flax seed to chia seed and the pecans to 1/2 a cup of sliced almonds. Delicious Perfection! Thanks for the recipe - looking forward to trying more recipes from this site.
Madhuram says
Thanks Abigail. Great to know that it works with chia seeds too.
NS says
Hi Madhuram,
Thank you so much for this recipe. I made some minor changes/mistakes to the recipe and my muffins fell after taking out of the oven. They were rising up nicely and I could see the dome as I was getting them out of the oven. But they fell within minutes after that.
1. I added a little over 1/3 Cup of frozen blueberries (did not thaw) instead of cranberries.
2. I thought it was 2 TBSP of flaxseed powder(instead of 2 tsp in your post).
3. I kept the pans inside the oven while it was getting preheated (5 min to go) but baked it for full time as mentioned.
Could you please guide me as to what might have gone wrong with this.
Thanks in advance!
Madhuram says
I missed this comment NS. Sorry about it. The 3rd was the only mistake according to me. You should not keep the pans in the oven while it is preheating.